This story comes to us from Beirut. A father left his two sons a plot of land each. Fair enough. But then, the two had a rift. And of course, a sibling rivalry was underway. Don’t worry, there isn’t any blood involved here. However, there is a piece of genius or pettiness (depends on how you see it).
One of the brothers built this.
What’s the objective? Like mentioned in the tweet, he wanted to block the sea view of the Mediterranean from his brother’s building, thus decreasing the value of his brother’s property. So basically, all his brother sees is cement.
The building, if you want to call it that, was erected in 1954, with each floor having two rooms. One of which was used as a brothel and the other a refugee safe house during the Lebanese War. It’s only 60 cm in thickness on one side, one of the thinnest in the world, and the land is just 120 square meters.
The name of the building is Al Ba’sa which translates to The Grudge. Aptly named. Since it looks like a ship, it is also called The Queen Mary.
Another interesting story is that according to the city’s laws the building is standing on legal grounds and cannot be torn down. Demolishing it won’t make any sense since the land is too small to build anything significant. And if no developer would invest in it, there’s no point in tearing it down.
While the Grudge still stands, literally, you won’t be surprised to know that there are other ‘revenge constructions’ across the world as well. Here are some that the Twitterati shared: